Triple Dare (Sterling Shore 7)

That has me giggling. The image of my father restraining Corbin as he tattoos my name on his dick is too funny not to giggle about.

“Call me if you need me,” Dad grunts, acting like I’m going to have a bad reaction to fun brownies. I don’t bother telling him that this isn’t my first rodeo.

But I do giggle a little more, and that earns me a smile from Corbin as he bends over and kisses my forehead.

As Wanda pulls Dad out the door, Corbin plugs in a DVD, and I watch his ass as he stays bent over. It’s been a while since I’ve admired that ass without forcing my eyes away.

“Like what you see?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Always have,” I quip.

He chuckles as the movie starts, and I curl up against him the second he sits down. His arms come around me, holding me to him, and I kiss his chest through his shirt before focusing my attention on the movie. Well, sort of. My attention span seems to be lacking.

“You and Brin hanging out some now?” he asks idly.

“Yeah. I like her. We’ve been talking more and more.”

He seems to like that answer.

“Where’s Bo tonight?”

“She’s staying with Bora. They have some big presentation to work on, and Bora won’t focus unless she’s there to force her. So, they’re going over design… I can’t remember the word.”

He snickers, and all chatter about the others finally ends.

“This feels so much better than fighting with you,” I murmur, moving over until I’m in his lap and seated right where I want to be.

Unlike being drunk, I don’t feel like a horny teenager. I just feel… peaceful.

“Yeah, this is definitely better,” he agrees, running his hand through my hair. “This is the real us. We haven’t been us since you moved back to Sterling Shore.”

I nod, trying to feign some interest in the movie.

“I’ve been a bitch.”

He bursts out laughing, and his hand slides down to my waist, hugging me a little.

“You haven’t been a bitch. I’d be in a corner crying if you had been.”

That has me laughing, because hell, it’s probably true. I’m scary when I’m a bitch. I even scare myself.

“I kept worrying we’d fall back into old habits once I was here full time, but now I see we can be the best version of us without all the weird games we play. Our best version is being friends. Like this.”

His breathing halts for a second, and the circles he was drawing with his finger on my side pause.

“Friends. Yeah,” he says on an exhale before resuming those circles.

“What are we watching?” I ask, staring at the scene that suspiciously resembles a chick flick.

“I don’t even know,” he lies, grinning as he kisses my forehead. “I just grabbed something on my way out.”

Groaning, I twist against him, pillowing my head on his chest. “You’re such a chick flick whore.”

He laughs before turning us, lying down, and before I know it, I’m sprawled out on top of him, and we’re watching the cheesy movie. It’s nice to not have that tension between us. Maybe I should have had those brownies sooner, dammit.

We laugh and joke and talk about the days we used to get each other in sooo much trouble. Okay, so those days are still happening on occasion. We used to dish out new triple dares daily, until it got exhausting.

“I still owe you for New Year’s,” he grumbles, but a ghost of a smile is on his lips.

“Good luck with that.”

His phone rings over and over, but he never answers it, and I stay tucked away on his chest, never bothering to move.

“When did you get your piercing?” I ask him, because it’s been driving me crazy. Why didn’t he come to me to get it done?

“Three years ago,” he tells me.

“Why did you get it?”

He laughs under his breath before answering. “You really want to know?”

“More than I should.”

With a sigh, he runs his hand down my back. “You kept talking about all that shit, and, well, I thought it’d be something worth trying out.”

I’m not sure what that means.

“You got your dick pierced because I was talking about dick piercings?” I muse.

“Something like that,” he grumbles. “When did you get yours?”

“I don’t have a dick piercing.” I grin as he laughs, and he swats my ass.

“You know what I mean.”

“I think I was twenty or twenty-one. I can’t remember.”

We lie there for a little while, trying not to feel awkward about the piercings we’re discussing. I do this for a living, but it’s different when it’s with Corbin.

We finally move on to safer topics, and we stay within those confines for a while.

“You going to kick me out in the morning when you’re sober?” Corbin asks around a yawn after hours and hours of talking, and I grin, looking at the ungodly hour.